KILLING THE BUDDHA
“Manseau and Sharlet manage to pull off a most impressive work. This is some of the most original and insightful spiritual writing to come out of America since Jack Kerouac first hit the road.”
—Publishers Weekly, starred and boxed

“KILLING THE BUDDHA proves that fear and trembling are human, but a sense of humor is divine.”
—O, The Oprah Magazine

“Shot through with epiphanies and controversy.”
—Vanity Fair

"Daring and delightful... Heretics and skeptics, as well as true-blue believers, will find KILLING THE BUDDHA refreshing, inspiring and downright invigorating."
—New York Newsday

"Whip-smart . . . Not so much a rewriting of the Bible as a super-charged hip-hop makeover . . . A genuine stab at a saucy kind of spirituality that's as bold as it is refreshing."
—New York Observer

"Quirky, far-ranging . . . With a format as complex as many people's relationship with God, it shouldn't work but it does—a literary leap of faith."
—Elle

"A heartfelt meditation on and exploration of contemporary religious practice in the United States . . . an intriguing work that is unafraid of controversy."
—The Denver Post

"KILLING THE BUDDHA is, without question, one of the most eccentric and fascinating books of the year. . . . This much is reasonably certain: you're unlikely to have encountered anything before quite like it."
—The Buffalo News, Editor's Choice

"A mix of hymn and history, poem and prophecy, story and sermon."
—Jeff Simon, NPR, "Morning Edition"

"A mesmerizing platform for all the confusions, inconsistencies, and hard-boiled epiphanies concerning spiritual belief in 21st-century America."
—Time Out New York

"If there's one thing this pseudo-Christian nation needs, it's more deranged slightly anarchic anecdotes of unique spiritual questing [like] KILLING THE BUDDHA."
—San Francisco Chronicle

"An intelligent, challenging collection of essays and reflections that is a sharp addition to the body of spiritual journey memoirs. . . . [Manseau and Sharlet] see stories everywhere and nowhere, managing to maintain both healthy skepticism and rare hopefulness. An ambitious book in its scope and explicit desire not to find answers to the big questions, but to hone and shape the ways in which they are asked."
—Forward

"Fascinating, offbeat . . . religious practices you don't learn about in Bible school."
—The Boston Globe

"Like a Michelin guide to the American soul, KILLING THE BUDDHA is written by a prophecy dream team."
—Thomas Frank, author of One Market Under God